Oracle 10g on RHEL 5

Installation of Oracle database 10g on RHEL 5

This manual is directed show how to install Oracle database 10g on RedHat Enterprise Linux 5. The article show the process from system administrator point of view ad try to simplicify most of the tasks not related to system administration will indeep explanation of tasks and impacts of them. Be aware RHEL 5 x86 is not supported platform (in this moment) for Oracle 10g so when you ask questions in metalink don’t be surprised get no answer. According to the product documentation supported platforms for x96 are RHEL AS/ES 3.4 or later, RHEL 4, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0SP2 or later and Asianux 1.0 and 2.0. Additionally you can’t expect reliability from this system for production environment.

==Hardware requirements==

From documentation you read Oracle 10g need at least 1 gigabyte of memory, but the absolute minimum is 512 MB. OK, with so little memory you are on the bottom line for required shared memory, but database can start. for testing 768 MB sound’s much better. Similar is the situation with swap. Everything will work fine with only 1024 MB of swap.

==Software requirements==

List of packages you will need for install Oracle 10g on RHEL include

binutils

compat-db

compat-libstdc++

control-center

gcc

gcc-c++

glibc

glibc-common

gnome-libs

libstdc++

libstdc++-devel

make

pdksh

sysstat

xscreensaver

setarch

libXp (to start runInstaller)

==Preinstalation tasks==

Let’s create users and groups for installation

# groupadd dba

# groupadd oinstall

# useradd -G dba -d /home/oracle -g oinstall oracle

# passwd oracle

Next create filesystem for oracle files and database. Do not forget to create appropriate changes in /etc/fstab to mount this filesystem on startup. In documentation of product is mentioned to use only RAID10 array(s) and for production is wise to use hardware based arrays, but here we just play and any filesystem and volume will be OK.

Transfer files to the machine and extract zip’s somewhere. I write files, because i recommend for installation not only Oracle database server, but 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3) Patch Set 2 ever only for testing and playing. For more info about the the patch set read document 316900.1 and download file p5337014_10203_LINUX.zip from metalink.

Now is time to login on the machine as root to set some parameters in linux kernel and operating system

– check if FQHN exist in /etc/hosts

– check the id of oracle user to ensure oinstall is primary group of user and user is member of group dba

– check for existence of user nobody

– check and set if need the parameters for semaphors:

semmsl – 250

semmns – 32000

semopm – 100

semmni – 128

if you have attached to the server additional hardware read carefully documentation of drivers for this hardware, because for example some drivers for FC controllers need additional semaphors to be set per controller

– check and set if need the parameters for shared memory

shmall 2097152

shmmax Half the size of physical memory (in bytes) or current value if bigger

shmmni 4096

– check and set if need the parameters for maximum number of file handlers, supported by system

file-max 65536

– check and set if need the parameters for network

ip_local_port_range Minimum:1024 Maximum:65000

rmem_default 1048576

rmem_max 1048576

wmem_default 262144

wmem_max 262144

So you can add you /etc/sysctl.conf file something like

kernel.shmall = 2097152

kernel.shmmax = 2147483648

kernel.shmmni = 4096

kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128

fs.file-max = 65536

net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000

net.core.rmem_default = 1048576

net.core.rmem_max = 1048576

net.core.wmem_default = 262144

net.core.wmem_max = 262144

and execute

# sysctl -p

Next is time to set some environment variables for oracle user. Do not forget to put the in shell profile for oracle user. They should look’s like

ORACLE_BASE=/home/oracle

ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/10.2.0

ORACLE_SID=test01

On this point it is very good idea to check the available diskspace in directory where will be installed oracle – you will need 4 GB average for software and database. To start successfully installer it’s need to edit /etc/redhat-release and to change release from 5 to 4. Do not forget to return the value back later, otherwise you will be no able to update your server.

==Preinstalation tasks==

Next is time to run runInstall. You will need running X server, because interactive installation need graphic display

On the first step we choose advanced installation to have better control over the packages and options to be installed on the server. Later if it’s need we can install additional packages almost seamless.

Our target is Enterprise Server as more powerful and complex. on the next step Oracle Installer check for prerequisites for installation as physical memory, swap, networking, environment variables, etc. If you get warning about the amount of memory you can skip it without any problem. Next we will install only software without create new database. There is program, named dbca – database configuration assistant which one can help to create new database. Then read the summary screen and go back to change some packages you do not need or other parameter. It’s out of scope of this document to discuss the idea and purpose of packages you can find in oracle database. Netx we press install and wait a lot, because of very long process of installation. On the bottom part of the screen you can see the path to log file for current installation and you can inspect it if you get some errors or just from curiosity.

In on of the stages of installation (almost on the end) you should execute 2 scripts as root user. And at the end we have installed Oracle database 10g. If you have patch mentioned above installation process for patch is similar: runInstaller….

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One Response to “Oracle 10g on RHEL 5”

I need your urgent help, I am RHCE and have 5+ years of experience in Linux and Windows System Admin. I am going to face interview with HCL next week for Linux System Admin on L2/L3. Can you please help me to prepare for the same.
Although your questions are very important and useful to prepare for the same. but any link/site/material would definatly be a big plus.
thanks a lot.
take care.
Jai Kishore Verma